The welfare economics of immigration control

This paper develops a Harris-Todaro (HT) type model of East-West migration in which labour market imperfections prevent market clearing in both blocs. The model encompasses two extremes of perfectly flexible wages with full employment on the one hand, and the HT scenario where the real wage in the host country is fixed, on the other. Welfare analysis compares the laissez-faire migration equilibrium based on explicit calculations of potential migrants without immigration controls in the West, with the socially optimal level of migration. The paper examines the issue of immigration control by developing a model of illegal immigration in which the incentives facing the potentially illegal immigrant are explicitly modelled. Received: 3 April 1997/Accepted 16 March 1998     

Exact short poisson confidence intervals

The authors propose a new method for constructing a confidence interval for the expectation θ of a Poisson random variable. The interval they obtain cannot be shortened without the infimum over θ of the coverage probability falling below 1 ‐ α. In addition, the endpoints of the interval are strictly increasing functions of the observed variable. An easy‐to‐program algorithm is provided for computing this interval.     

Sadness and Chronic Illness: A Conversation with Bruce Perham

Bruce Perham is a social worker and narrative therapist who works at Alzheimers Australia Vic., the peak body representing the interests of people affected by dementia. He previously worked at an adoption agency, the Spastic Society (now Scope), and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Bruce trained in family therapy in Melbourne and in narrative therapy with Michael White at the Dulwich Centre. Bruce has created an extensive range of written and video resources for people with dementia and MS and their family members. He describes how his family of origin, his resultant personal struggles as an adult, and narrative therapy, have profoundly influenced his work with people with chronic illness and their families, in particular, his approach to sadness.     

GASOLINE PRICES AND ROAD FATALITIES: INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

This study utilizes data for 144 countries from 1991 to 2010 to present the first international estimates of the gasoline price elasticity of road fatalities. We instrument each country's gasoline price with that country's oil reserves and the yearly international crude oil price to address potential endogeneity concerns. Our findings suggest that the average reduction in road fatalities resulting from a 10% increase in the gasoline pump price is in the order of 3%–6%. Around 35,000 road deaths per year could be avoided by the removal of global fuel subsidies. (JEL R41, H23, O18, Q43)     

On cross‐validation of Bayesian models

The authors examine several aspects of cross‐validation for Bayesian models. In particular, they propose a computational scheme which does not require a separate posterior sample for each training sample.     

A Partial Likelihood Estimator of Vaccine Efficacy

A partial likelihood method is proposed for estimating vaccine efficacy for a general epidemic model. In contrast to the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) which requires complete observation of the epidemic, the suggested method only requires information on the sequence in which individuals are infected and not the exact infection times. A simulation study shows that the method performs almost as well as the MLE. The method is applied to data on the infectious disease mumps.     

The Organizational Dynamics of the U.S. Environmental Movement: Legitimation,Resource Mobilization,and Political Opportunity*

Abstract We analyze the relationship between legitimation, resource mobilization, and political opportunity and the founding rate of national environmental organizations between 1895 and 1994. We address recent criticisms that organizational ecologists' reliance on the density dependence model—which treats legitimation as an unmeasured intervening variable—has failed to capture the active sociopolitical character of this process. We advocate a more historical approach to legitimation which relies on print media to construct direct measures of legitimation. Specifically, we use the yearly count of environmental books published as a measure of the legitimacy of environmentalism in the U.S. This count remains statistically significant and positively related to foundings even when other variables are added to the model. A negative second‐order effect of total books suggests that the recent proliferation of state and local environmental organizations is beginning to depress the founding rate of national organizations. Variations in resource mobilization and political opportunity also have affected foundings, though variables measuring the latter were not significant in the full model.